Andy Hinchcliffe explodes at Darnell Furlong after what he did in West Brom loss v Sunderland
Darnell Furlong was “really lucky” not to see red in the closing stages of the Sunderland clash with West Brom on Saturday lunchtime.
The Baggies were beaten 2-1 at the Stadium of Light but chased a result until the death, as shown by Furlong’s altercation with Alex Pritchard in stoppage time.
Furlong was booked for putting his arm in the fact of the Black Cats midfielder, but while working on commentary Sky Sports (9 December, 14:29) Andy Hinchcliffe admitted that the full-back knew what he was doing and could easily have been sent off for an elbow after he “smashed” Pritchard.
“The ball was always going to go out of play, Furlong just goes in to protect it,” he said.
“Was it accidental? Is there a swing of the elbow? Clearly not, the referee feels it’s just an arm in the face.
“But he does actually step across, there is a raised elbow there. He knows exactly what he’s doing Furlong. He knows he’s getting closed down, that arm comes up.
“Smashes Pritchard. He’s lucky, Furlong. Really lucky.”
Lucky
West Brom were definitely hard done by when it comes to the officials in this game, especially considering the man who got the opening goal shouldn’t have been on the pitch.
But with the amount of injuries that the team have got at the moment, we simply cannot afford for players to lose their heads and their discipline for no reason whatsoever.
Furlong could easily have seen a red card for the elbow incident and while he didn’t get one, nobody would have argued had it been shown.
Carlos Corberan will no doubt have a word about keeping their discipline in tough situations, because the season still has a long way to go.
The team now must bounce back in midweek when they take on Rotherham on Tuesday night to get our promotion charge back on track, and thankfully we’ll have Furlong available for us even if we probably shouldn’t after this momentary head loss.
In other West Brom news, Nightmare for star after horror footage emerges which should leave Corberan raging.